Dolly Parton’s Library: Birth (Not 9) to Five

Dolly Parton’s Library: Birth (Not 9) to Five

Kristin O’Rourke and Sue Lyons

Photo by M.J. McAteer

By M.J. McAteer

Dolly Parton made headlines last year for her prescient donation of $1 million to help fund efforts to develop a COVID-19 vaccine, but the country music superstar’s record of generosity actually stretches back many decades.

Now, thanks to the efforts of a handful of dedicated, local volunteers, one of the singer’s earliest and longest-running charitable endeavors, Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library (DPIL), has a brand new chapter in western Loudoun called Roots Grow Wings.

The Imagination Library is a sort-of book-ofthe-month club for children aged birth through five. Children in the program, which is open to all, regardless of financial need, receive a free, personalized book mailed to their home every month from birth until they are ready for kindergarten.

The idea is to inspire a love of reading and equalize opportunity before these children even begin school. Early literacy also is tied to the social and emotional well being of a child, and the books come with educational tips to help strengthen the parent-child bond.

In its quarter-century of operation, Parton’s organization has registered almost 21,000 kids and distributed more than 160 million books. Roots Grow Wings is the commonwealth’s 31st DPIL chapter.

Sue Lyons, a reading specialist at Emerick Elementary in Purcellville, is the point person for the new Loudoun chapter. “It was a pipe dream for 20 years,” she said, but the arrival of Covid was the concerted and unanticipated push that was needed to make it really happen.

Seeing children lose their access to school and public libraries “was an eye-opener,” Lyons said. So, last year, she gathered a group of ten like-minded mothers and teachers, including Emerick parent Kristin O’Rourke, to lay the groundwork for a chapter of DPIL.

“Everyone was all in,” she said..

DPIL requires chapters to partner with a nonprofit to facilitate accounting and logistics, so the first step in turning good intentions into good results was to find a partner. The Rotary Club of Leesburg stepped up immediately.

Ernie Carnevale, Leesburg Rotary’s main coordinator and liaison to Roots Grow Wings, said when he was approached with the partnership idea, his club’s unanimous response was,“Let’s go for it.”

The women, he said, “Did their own heavy lifting,” while his club helped connect them to other donors and foundations. It also seeded the new DPIL chapter with $1,000 to be matched, which the women did in a record three months.

DPIL advises its chapters to raise enough funds for two years of mailings before launch, and Lyons and her team raised the requisite $7,000 to $8,000 to cover two zip codes to start with--Middleburg’s 20017 and Purcellville’s 20132, which includes Hillsboro and Lincoln.

Registration opened April 1, and by mid-month, Roots With Wings already had enrolled 63 children, O’Rourke said.

The first book to be shipped to every child is the 1930 classic “The Little Engine That Could.” The last is D.J. Steinberg’s 2012 “Kindergarten Here I Come.” All the in-between selections are curated by a committee with an emphasis on diversity.

Roots Grow Wings has been publicizing itself on social media and is planning more fundraisers, such as an art show held in May at Sunset Hills Vineyard in Purcellville. But individual donors can accomplish a lot with their donations. Just $25 is enough to supply a child with books for a year; a $126 donation is enough to sponsor that child for the entire five years.

Dolly Parton’s father was illiterate, so his daughter committed herself to literacy. Roots Grow Wings now has made the same commitment.

The launch of the new program has been laborintensive for the all-woman crew, but the payback has made all their hard work worth it.

“It’s exciting to be part of a project that is so positive,” Lyons said.

Photo by M.J. McAteer Kristin O’Rourke and Sue Lyons

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